Author: Arnaw Kumar

160by2 announced that it has extended its SMS character space of its free messaging services. 160by2 has increased its character limit from 80 to 145 characters.

160by2 is India’s most popular website, which provides free messaging services. Using its services, you can even send free messages to countries like Kuwait, UAE, Saudi, Singapore, Philippines & Malaysia via its web portal. It also provides you the flexibility of free download of mobile applications. However, 160by2 comes with one restriction. It allows you to send up to 50 messages in a day and only 10 messages to a particular number.

Mr. Satyakalyan Yerramsetti, CEO 160by2.com said,

Our free SMS service and other offerings like mobile application have revolutionized this industry. With the tremendous success to our products, we have decided to remove the cap on the remaining 80 characters in a text message.

Airtel has tied up with Norton AntiVirus to bring its antivirus services for mobile phones. This step is taken to ensure that smartphone users are free from spam, virus attacks and unwanted messages. Let us have a look at the features offered by Norton Smartphone Security (NSS).

1) Advanced Protection: – Norton Anti Virus will automatically scan and detect viruses and spams. It will make sure that your phone is safe from virus intrusions by checking individual files and applications. It even guarantees safety while Bluetooth transfers, Wi-Fi, GSM and 3G. 2) Real-time protection: It includes prevention from Dos attacks with enhanced firewall blocks. 3) It helps in blocking SMS/MMS from unknown senders. 4) NSS comes with an easy to use interface. Now you can easily manage and schedule antivirus scans. 5) LiveUpdate ensures that the virus databases are always updated.

Tata Indicom, one of India’s leading CDMA operators announced the launch of two new special tariff vouchers for unlimited local and STD calls in Orissa Telecom circle. The two new vouchers are available at a price of Rs 225 and Rs 699.

The details of Rs 225 Special Tariff Voucher are as follows:-

1) Available for only prepaid subscribers 2) Unlimited local callings on the Tata network which includes Tata Indicom, Virgin Mobile (GSM/CDMA) and Tata DOCOMO 3) Validity: 30 days from the date of recharge

The details of Rs 699 Special Tariff Voucher are as follows:-

1) Available for only prepaid subscribers 2) Unlimited local and STD callings to TTSL/TTML network across India 3) Validity: 30 days from the date of recharge

Tata Indicom has evolved into a much-loved brand across Orissa and the launch of the STV 225 and STV 699 vouchers is our way of expressing our gratitude and rewarding our customers for being a part of the Tata family.

Now you can experience Twitter on your Blackberry smartphones as it is now available in public beta mode. You can also download the application by visiting mobile.blackberry.com. However, this twitter app comes with some restrictions. It is available for only those BlackBerry users whose OS version is 4.5 or higher with at least 64-MB of built in memory.

Some of the key features of the Twitter for BlackBerry smartphone are as follows-

â€¢ BlackBerry Push technology ensures direct delivery of twitter messages to the users. â€¢ You can post new tweets, delete tweets, re-tweet, reply to tweets and send direct messages. â€¢ You can also send a tweet to various other social networking sites like Facebook. â€¢ You can search for other Twitter users and search for tweets within a chosen location. â€¢ You can view a list of the top 10 trending topics on Twitter.

Aircel has introduced its new Rs 61 SMS pack in Maharashtra- Goa circle. This will allow you to send up to 500 SMS (Local or National) per day, valid up to 30 days from the date of recharge.

Until now, it seemed that Aircel was lagging behind in the completion of telecom service providers in India. While all other telecom service providers were launching their bundle of schemes, we hardly saw Aircel`s offerings. Thankfully, Aircel now has come up with a SMS pack in Maharashtra. With this, Maharashtra-Goa circle is enriched with SMS services of all major telecom service providers apart from Idea.

Let us have a close look at SMS packs launched by various providers in Maharashtra- Goa region.

Tata Indicom has introduced Tata Photon Plus Speed Living services for mobile phones. Now all the Tata Indicom subscribers having HSIA enabled CDMA mobile phones can download at a speed of 2.4 Mbps. The Speed Living service is available both to Post-paid and Prepaid subscribers in all circles across India. Also, note that the cities where Photon+ is not launched, subscriber will get 1x speed.

To avail these offers do make sure that your RUIM (Removable User Identity Module) is not removed from the handset. The above-mentioned offers will be activated only within the time period 1st April 2010 to 31st May 2010.

Sistema Shyam Teleservices Ltd’s MTS India has announced new exciting offers in Kolkata and West Bengal telecom circles.

The following are the details of the services offered :-

1) MTS India has re-launched its most popular MCARD 499 with extra facilities. You can now enjoy Free Own Net callings for lifetime. However, a daily charge of Rs 1 will be deducted from your account to enjoy the MTS to MTS free callings. The other network Local callings and SMS charges remain same as before.

3) MTS India has also introduced 2 new SMS packs of Rs 15 and 10. With the SMS Pack of Rs15 you will get Rs 10 as talk value along with 35 free SMS (25 local +10 National) having a validity of 5 days. The SMS Pack of Rs 30 will provide you with a talk time of Rs 24 and 100 SMS (75 local +25 National) with a validity of 10 days.

Videocon Mobile Service has announced free local calls for the Tamil Nadu Telecom circle. However, you need to recharge with Rs 99 to get it activated. This will allow you to make free local calls of 18 minutes from Videocon to Videocon and 15 minutes from Videocon to other networks. 18 and 15 minutes of free talk time are provided on a daily basis and the talktime will not be added to the next day’s value. You will lose talktime if you do not complete its daily quota of free calls.

Videocon also launched its GPRS/WAP services in TamilNadu dubbed as V-live and V-Internet. All the Videocon subscribers will receive GPRS Settings automatically to access the Internet. Browsing is free on V-live page and browsing to any other page is chargeable at 10p/10Kb.

If you are not from TamilNadu, do not worry as Videocon will soon cover your region. Videocon is all set to expand its services in next two months covering cities across Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Prasad and Maharashtra.

Videocon Mobile Phone’s V1405 handset was awarded the Product of the Year 2010 Award under the Value Phones’ category. V1405 offers multitude of features within an affordable price range. It is a dual SIM phone with camera, wireless FM radio with recording, 8 GB expandable memory, mobile tracker and Bluetooth and costs just Rs 4,000.

Mr. Anil Khera, CEO Videocon Mobile Phones said,

This award is especially close to our heart since it was a choice made by consumers nationally. We will definitely make sure that we maintain the trust that our customers have shown in us. We have a long way to go but this award will give us the confidence that we are definitely heading down the right path.

Mr. Rahul Goel, COO, Videocon Mobile Phones said,

Receiving an award such as this, especially in such a short period only proves that we have been able to carve our own space despite the huge competition that prevails in our industry. Our customers have been able to see that we are committed to excellence and hence we have been bestowed the prestigious award of being the Product of the Year 2010.

I am sure you must have heard of Luminous Power batteries and inverters. Now you are going to hear its mobile phones. The company has planned to offer its mobile handsets under the brand name of Wynncom’ under Wynn Telecom Limited.

Mr. Rakesh Malhotra, Co-Founder and Chairman, Wynn Telecom Ltd said,

This move is a part of the company’s strategy to offer more consumer products under the umbrella of convergence and the company aims to capture a place among the top brands

The company is all set to launch seven models of dual SIM handsets in the price range of Rs 5,000 in May this year. According to Wynn Telecom Ltd, the products will consist of Utility phones, Upgrade Phones and Youth Phones. Utility phones will feature long battery backups. The Wynncom upgrade series mobile phones will focus on multimedia. The Youth series mobile phones will feature QWERTY keypad, Instant Chat messengers and support for social networking applications.